Eileen Pollack Recommends...

“When I'm stuck, I daydream my way back to a place that still holds a great deal of emotion for me, and a ritual that used to take place there, lingering on the objects that vibrate and glow with some hidden, deeper meaningI have yet to discover. (To get myself in the right frame of mind, I tend to reread work by Bruno Schulz.) Once I have recreated the ritual on the page, I think about what might happen to threaten or disrupt it.

“I got a much-needed start on my first novel by daydreaming my way back to an idyllic June afternoon in the pool at my family’s hotel. Various stories and essays have been inspired by my deep emotional attachment to the Dictaphone belts and Magic Carbons of the crazy insurance company where I used to work, the rarely used but totally intriguing pop-out cigarette lighter on my parents’ old Pontiac, the heavy double-edged chrome Gillette razor with which I gave my father fake shaves. Sometimes, I focus on a ritual that frightens or disturbs me. But if I haven’t been writing for a while, I’m usually in a foul mood, so I much prefer to daydream myself back a place and time I once loved.”—Eileen Pollack, author of Breaking and Entering (Four Way Books, 2012)